childhood

growing up

in slavery

is no life

for a child

braver mothers

than her

protected

through suffocation

five years

old they’re

put

to work

ten years

old they join

the calloused

field hands

sold at one

sold at five

sold at seven

sold at ten

black families

incorrigibly torn apart

at the

jagged seams

vast black families

torn apart by

inhuman

white fa...

I'm holding one hand over my mouth and staring at what I'm holding in the other hand. In it is an old Polaroid of a woman, who's not my mother, holding me immediately after giving birth and the words "Janine's Birth Mother" written on the bottom.

How long can your eyes stay open before you need to blink? I think I just hit the record. My eyes are dryer than a KFC biscuit and, yet, I can't close ...

She walked into the house with an air of calm around her. She wasn’t going to fuss; she wasn’t going to fight. Walking towards the back of the house, she grabbed everything in sight that was hers and put it into her duffle bag. For the past month, she’d been slowly moving her items out of the house; his egocentrism finally worked in her favor.

Ten minutes later, she was back at the front door. S...

Those jive turkeys have another thing coming if they think we're gonna sit back and take this. Ain’t no man gonna tell me what I can and can’t do with my body. For years they've been doing nothing so I say "nothing doing”! Election day's coming and we’re coming for you. Ya dig?...